The Lindsay Clancy murder trial has reached the brink of a mistrial after seven days of deliberations — and the final morning produced an extraordinary confrontation between the judge and Clancy’s defense attorney.

Judge William Sullivan said Friday that the deadlocked jury had left him with no choice but to end the trial without a verdict. Before the mistrial became final, however, defense attorney Kevin Reddington received one hour to seek emergency relief from a justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

The courtroom was already boiling over before that development.

Watch the exchange:

The Associated Press reported these details from Friday morning:

Reddington pressed Sullivan to address a juror whom the defense said was refusing to apply the court’s reasonable-doubt instructions. The attorney urged the judge to deliver those instructions more “forcefully,” rather than taking what he called a soft approach.

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Sullivan shot back, “What do you want me to do? Get a brass band?” He said he had read the instruction as written and reminded Reddington that he was delivering the law, not performing as an actor.

The judge later told the jury once again that every juror had a duty to accept and follow the law, whether or not that juror agreed with it. He then sent the panel back to deliberate.

Sullivan also refused the defense request to question the disputed juror again. He said Massachusetts law sharply limits when a sitting juror may be discharged and would not allow him to remove someone merely because of the juror’s position in the deliberations.

The argument centered on a note from the jury foreperson. Here was the first public indication of the fight inside the jury room:

CBS Boston laid out what was known about that note and the split:

Reddington told the court the foreperson had reported that one juror acknowledged doubt but would not apply it to the verdict under the law. He accused that juror of lying when the judge questioned the panel members individually.

The defense lawyer inferred that the panel was divided 11-1 in favor of an acquittal. That was Reddington’s interpretation of the note, not a verdict announced by the jury and not an independent public disclosure of how every juror voted.

Prosecutors opposed removing the juror. Sullivan ruled that he would not intrude further into the jury’s deliberations and kept the panel intact.

The jury ultimately reported that it remained hopelessly deadlocked. That prompted Sullivan’s mistrial move and Reddington’s last-minute request to take the juror issue to the state’s highest court.

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Reuters summarized the standoff before Friday’s final deadlock:

WCVB reported the dramatic final sequence:

Jurors sent another note after returning for a seventh day of deliberations, saying they still could not reach a unanimous decision. Sullivan then said he would declare a mistrial.

Reddington immediately asked for an emergency stay so he could seek review from a single justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. His request focused on the judge’s handling of the disputed juror.

The judge gave the defense one hour to present the matter to the state’s highest court. The move temporarily paused the formal end of a six-week trial that began July 20 and included 21 days of testimony from doctors, investigators, relatives, mental-health experts and first responders.

Jurors began deliberating on the afternoon of August 27. They reported an impasse more than once, received the state’s special instruction urging deadlocked jurors to keep working, and still could not produce a unanimous decision.

A mistrial does not amount to an acquittal or a conviction. It means this jury did not deliver a unanimous verdict, leaving prosecutors to decide whether to try the case again if the defense’s emergency effort does not change the outcome.

The jury had five choices: first-degree murder, second-degree murder, manslaughter, not guilty, or not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility.

The defense argued that Clancy was suffering from postpartum psychosis and lacked criminal responsibility. Prosecutors argued that she planned the killings, understood right from wrong and was criminally responsible.

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Massachusetts’ model homicide instructions explain the legal question at the center of the case:

Once criminal responsibility is properly raised, the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant retained substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of the conduct or to conform that conduct to the law.

The burden stays with the prosecution. A defendant does not have to prove that she lacked criminal responsibility, and jurors must begin with the presumption that the defendant was not criminally responsible once the issue has been properly raised.

The instructions also make clear that a diagnosis by itself does not settle the legal question. Jurors must weigh the evidence about the defendant’s mental condition alongside her conduct before, during and after the alleged crimes.

If the prosecution fails to prove criminal responsibility beyond a reasonable doubt, the verdict is not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility. That verdict can lead to court-ordered hospitalization and periodic judicial review; it does not automatically mean an immediate return to ordinary life.

This jury reached no verdict on that question.

Clancy does not dispute that she killed her three children at the family’s Duxbury home in January 2023. The children were Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months.

The courtroom fireworks will dominate the clips. But the center of this case remains three children whose lives were taken and a jury that could not agree on criminal responsibility.

This is a developing story. The article will be updated if the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court acts on the defense request.

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If you or someone you know is in emotional distress or a suicidal crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

 

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